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3 reasons the Mets fell so far behind the Phillies
How did the Phillies pass the Mets in superiority?
The 2022 season was the only time in MLB history when the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies made the postseason in the same year. There were never all that many opportunities until the wild card was introduced. Even then, the National League East rivals never had even a chance to face off in the playoffs until last year. It didn’t happen with the Mets bouncing out in the first round and the Phillies making it to the World Series after barely getting into the playoffs.
We all assumed both teams would make it again in 2023. Only the Phillies did and they’re still playing games while the Mets have already gotten their winters started.
How did it happen? What are the Phillies doing better than the Mets?
Several of the young Phillies players have lived up to the hype, the Mets youngsters aren't there yet
Bryson Stott. Alec Bohm. Brandon Marsh. All three have lived up to the hype in Philadelphia. They’re not without their shortcomings. However, each has accomplished a whole lot in a short period of time. There is no debate about where they belong on this team.
What about the Mets? We can only hope they start to put together the kinds of seasons those three have with the Phillies.
Brett Baty is in the same early stage Bohm was where we’re questioning everything about his place on the major league roster. Mark Vientos doesn’t seem to have a role on the team while Francisco Alvarez, as powerful as his bat is, will take time to develop.
Philadelphia stuck with their young players through growing pains. Doing the same could gift the Mets the same results. We can only hope so. The key is to actually play them.
Phillies free agent signings have worked out astonishingly well, the Mets additions haven't been as great
Bryce Harper. Trea Turner. Zack Wheeler. The list of successful Phillies free agent pickups includes most of their roster. This isn’t a homegrown team. Other than Aaron Nola, nobody has been around all that long from the farm system. Their version of the Baby Mets known as The Daycare only fully came together this season to produce the numbers they have. For the most part, the Phillies have been carried by solid free agent pickups from other organizations.
Meanwhile, the Mets chose James McCann over J.T. Realmuto. They didn’t sign Kyle Schwarber. Nick Castellanos was never a real consideration.
The Mets haven’t been a complete bust in free agency, but their problem may have been targeting older players. Starling Marte had an All-Star campaign in 2022 only to break down at the end of the year and look cracked through all of year two with the team. We know how things went with Max Scherzer in his second year.
More than numbers and what looks like a sloppily built roster with a below .200 slugger in the leadoff spot and a bunch of bad defenders all over the place, Philadelphia has added personalities that meshed. This includes moving on from Joe Girardi in 2022 and replacing him with bench coach Rob Thomson. The Phillies have had a completely different vibe ever since that move.
The Phillies haven’t been afraid to spend a lot now for the suffering in the future. The Mets have been careful about those never-ending contracts. They’ve gone high AAV over years which just hasn’t been effective.
The Phillies responded much better to their World Series loss than the Mets did to exiting in the first round
The biggest difference of all seems to be the attitude. The crushing defeat by the San Diego Padres in last year’s Wild Card round seemed to suck a lot of air out of the Mets. Buck Showalter never seemed as enthusiastic this year. Some early beatings against bad teams in May didn’t help the feeling around the time. Plus, with players like Tommy Pham exiting and claiming the Mets position players are the least-hard working among any he has ever played with, there was likely some tension in a couple of places throughout the year.
Far too much of this Mets season included rumors about players disliking each other. The strained relationship between Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander seems like one of the most obvious and yet how does a personal feud between two pitchers really affect a team all that much? Publicly, Mets players do act as if they like or can at least stand each other. We may never know for sure exactly what kind of tension there was behind the scenes.
The Phillies never had that dead feeling this year. Even without Bryce Harper for an extended period of time, they made it through. Most well-known from this year was how Phillies fans cheered Trea Turner out of his slump.
Hype around these two clubs was equal if not in favor of the Mets. The 2022 Phillies seemed fluky. Aside from adding Turner and some bullpen arms, taking Taijuan Walker from the Mets was their biggest acquisition. Up in Queens, there was a much better team on paper.
The game isn’t played on paper. Emotions and personalities are involved. This was how the Phillies managed to surpass the Mets most. Talent matters, but so does the presence of elements outside of the box score. The Mets looked like a team still icing themselves down after their playoff defeat a year earlier. The Phillies wiped some dirt on it.
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